[cycomanic]

There are tons of studies that have shown that if your name is sounding like you're from a minority your chances of being invited for an interview are significantly lower. Similar if you include photos.

As a side note, it's quite ironic that engineers often tend to complain about performance metrics and that they are being gamed, not really a good measure of merit..., but the same people turn around and argue that the everything should be a meriocracy.